Does anybody have any experience with having a cognitively damaged parent but also having bad behavior so it was just kind of a muddy puddle of invalidation? Like your parent has damage from drugs possibly and is bipolar so would be neglectful to you, but it was drowned out by prepubescent and, near psychotic outbursts and entitlement, so not only were you unaware of the damage you were receiving (and maybe had very low self worth/opinion due to your actions), but so is everyone else? People can only see the abusive brat child, but don't understand the complete parental dysfunction behind it? How it could possibly be both a result of just a $#%^ child yes but also an entirely incompetent, at times mentally abusive parent?

And what exactly defines an abusive child (towards the parent), in the rare circumstances that it exists? Yes some kids are just complete shitstains and have little to no tangible reason for their psychotic behavior (e.g Violet Beauregarde) but what about kids that can't see any better? That aren't developed enough to sift their thoughts from the violently raging bitterness, isolated drop-out-in-progress that can see nothing but the perceived injustice that they have been experiencing for the better part of their life. I want to believe that I should be held accountable for my prepubescent-early teen behavior, because that sounds like the right, personally responsible thing, but I just feel like if I had known what I do now, I wouldn't have behaved that way. It was like this emotional barrier completely blocking rational thought, probably a mix of hormones and complete and utter emotional dysfunction at it's finest.

And further being told how terrible of a child I was by my adult figures (although usually when the subject was relevant [though rarely necessary]. Just to clarify it wasn't intentional put-me-down abuse). I mean I couldn't blame them, but I feel like if they had a different approach to me, showed me a different light, maybe I could have pulled myself together a lot sooner and spared myself a mistake or few.

The part that I think bothers me the most though, is the invalidation. Not knowing whether or not I'm just a disgustingly pathetic and person who will amount to nothing, or if I truly was mistreated and that a large part of my childhood behavior could be pleaded ignorance and neglect, basically being misunderstood.

While the latter is definitely favorable and the understandably more comfortable route, I do often dwell on the idea that I am an unbalanced, manipulative failure, destined for nothing, irreversibly flawed, doomed; (but wait! there's more) underserving of love, and thus should forever avoid it to spare pure people my corruption, and ultimately recluse like the hideous monster I am.
..............At least, that's what those thoughts sound like. They do seem a little ridiculous when they're in front of me, though.

I began this pretty emotionally charged. I fluctuate pretty heavily between the two extremes I mentioned, really because I'm unsure of what the real truth is. There are so many factors to include, such as being clinically depressed on and off up until i left, (the mental illness probably didn't help my behavior) skewed images of others and myself, (definitely due in part to me being a kid), and moving around a lot; I think all these things really warped my memory and perception of my life at the time. Also to consider would be my adult figure's true intentions and whether or not they were harmful, which I know that for the most part (aside from retaliation toward my bad actions) they weren't and it was mostly just them being ill equipped for the parental job because of young age, low emotional intelligence, and very considerable, untreated mental illness.

(It's 6am, I've pulled an allnighter so bear with me if this isn't totally coherent)

So then is this more of just a, be the bigger person and move on type thing? Years of constant, repetitive, daily discourse that often resulted in verbally abusive screaming and fits of incomprehensive frustration (my end), not fully understanding what was bringing me to that point so I'd come down feeling terrible, but then I'd be immediately reminded as soon as The Parent partook in drinking or demonstrated the dysfunction that I was all too familiar with and wholeheartedly despised; just what? A melting pot of unfortunate mishaps? An abusive cycle between two childish minds, woven from genuine unlucky circumstance, where neither are truly at fault?

I haven't yet quite reached the later years of my teenhood, and I've left that situation, it's all behind me and I've got nothing but opportunity ahead of me. As lovely as it would be to just forget it all, I'm still in contact with these people. They still exist, I still love them, and they still love me. And I'm constantly shadowed with some sort of low self esteem/anxiety type of thing, so even if I were to cut contact I think there's just some things that are pretty hardwired in me that will take a lot of time to uninstall, and reboot? I feel like that's a good way to put it

And it hasn't even been a year since I left, so I think I still have a lot of time to heal and then maybe run back over it all with less bitter bias when I'm ready? Like put myself in their shoes sorta, learn how to really accept/understand what happened, forgive them, and maybe even myself.

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So! I think I've actually managed to talk myself through this anxiety or whatever this was
I'm not totally sure what I was expecting when I came here, maybe just other people's input and thoughts if they were available? I feel pretty isolated on my issue, it's such a long, complex, and extensive tunnel of $#%^ that not a lot of people have been able to relate on/understand/help me with in my experience, at least so far. Maybe I just wasn't explaining it right?

Anyway, all thoughts and two cents are appreciated. I'm completely new to this site, so if this posting format is bad or something, I humbly apologize and I hope I can figure it out soon

And if you've seriously gotten this far into my droning, thank you!

No, it's the blogs- the posting format is okay, as long as the forum rules are followed, you can ramble as you please in blog.

Do not feel hurt if you don't get replies, however... I find that replies to blog entries, are few and far in between, unless you happen to have a regular blog-follower.

Even though there will be many 'views' on the view-counter. Some of that may be from search engines, and... sometimes, I rather suspect gaggles of psychology students and/or professionals, studying human nature thru those of us that choose to blog, here in PF.

Any time you DO have a question, that you want specifically answered, it's always best to post a concise breakdown of what you'd like input on, in the appropriate forum.

And welcome to PF!

Thank you so much Snaga, I really appreciate the clarification. I'll keep that in mind!